For me; my high time on the forums was definitely during my senior year of high school (beginning in 2015). Coming on here and being able to actually write a story for once without hating every word I wrote was amazing, not to mention the fact that it gave me the ability to cope with some of the things I was going through around that time. To be able to watch unbiased strangers read my story and actually enjoy it for what it was was an experience I had never had. Yeah, Homestuck, among other stories, definitely inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and really write for once. And my friends gave me the encouragement I needed along with being willing to speculate and critique my story. But the forums gave me the perfect environment to flourish and enjoy writing for the sake of telling a good story.

However, I doubt I'll have that same experience again on here. Not because of the forums itself, just because of the place that I'm at right now in my life. I feel like if I began to move forward with writing it'll be on other sites where I can obtain more (not necessarily better) criticism and notoriety. I'll always come back here every now and again, just to see what's changed and which familiar faces are still lurking around, but I don't think I'll be an active member in terms of messaging others and responding to/posting threads. Again, its a me thing. But I think it should be said that the forums provided me with the opportunity to really enjoy writing, something that I think I'll always cherish.

I'd be extremely sad to see it close down for good, especially if a lot of people lost whatever projects or stories or shenanigans they were involved in. I, personally, do not have the education or time to help moderate the forums. Though I genuinely hope that you find a new team of moderators that would be happy to help keep things running smoothly. And if not, then I wish the best for everyone in this community. Y'all are really fucking great :)

Hey. Did you kill that cute turtle? NO
But I can see your past trail.
You're standing there holding a gun, and pointing it at the turtle. OK. THEN YES.
I KILLED THE TURTLE.
Booooooo

Oh my, where to begin. I've been reading over this site again, or what I can remember anyways, and finally came back here to put in my piece. I know I'm not the best with words, but... I hope I can put my feelings to justice.

I have only had an account on this particular forum site for just over a year, and much of that was spent away due to finishing up my senior year in high school. I've been a huge fan of Homestuck ever since I discovered its existence from an old friend. I was there through almost all of the major events, and upon discovering the strange and quirky nature of the comic, I made my first delving into cosplay and roleplaying, however terrible it was back then.

I discovered the forums shortly after discovering MSPARP a number of years ago and have been here and back again off and on. Reading through logs and seeing the wonderful adventures you could have with random strangers on the internet. Homestuck has seemingly changed my life for the better, letting me meet new friends who would eventually help me through dark times, and introduced me to the wonders of fantasy roleplay and adventure.

I was devastated to discover shortly before my graduation during a lull in my studies, that MSPARP forums had been nuked from some sort of attack. After all, I had a ton of fond memories from this place, from various accounts that I had forgotten passwords to, before finally nailing down a solid one, and making something from it, however little that was.

And then, after finding one of my friends being on MSPARP late at night, I headed back on, and logged in, determined to set something up for the next day to try my rusty skills at. However, I paused when I noticed the "FORUMS" tab. Out of curiosity I clicked it again, and my face lit up with I found this place alive and well, for the most part. However, Now I'm crushed due to the fact that this place may get shut down due to a lack of possible moderation

I have some experience with various forms of moderation, from game clans to some Discord servers, but I am unsure how much of my time I could spare to this wonderful website, and I do not know if I would be of much help.

HOWEVER, I implore you to find new moderation and people who can run this site with the kindness and fun that I fondly remember from my days of wasting time during class here. I want people to experience what I felt, if they stumble upon our wonderful webcomic.

Thank you, CentaursTesticle, for moderating this site as much as you can or feel like, and giving us the chance for providing feedback. I will respect and be happy with whatever decision you come up with.

I'm not willing to put anyone else through the unpleasantness of having to associate with me, so I'm going to limit myself to offering plain advice on how to proceed.

The Forum software is hopelessly outdated but if you update it without the person who originally coded all the cool features around to fix it, those features are going to break. However, if you don't update the software, then the site is at risk for security breaches. Meaning people could potentially hack into it and delete things or mess with the server it's on or a number of other nasty and unpleasant things.

What I'm hearing from you guys is that there really isn't any good place for fans of Homestuck to come together as far as Forums go. Forums are actually pretty lightweight, maintenance-wise and they don't cost a lot to keep up because they don't take up much space or bandwidth. Regardless of what happens, it's really not a problem to keep these Forums around as a read-only archive, if nothing else.

So here's what I would suggest: keep this site up while working on new forums that aren't on outdated software but are somehow able to replicate the same features.

Here's what you'll need:

1.) New hosting (maybe)

2.) New or updated software

3.) Someone to code the old features onto the new site

4.) A team of moderators to maintain the site

From just poking around a bit, I found a site called Forumotion that hosts Forums for free. It does have ads on it, which is kind of annoying, but they're also not that obtrusive, and it's got a whole section on it's page about RPG Forums. There's also something called Proboards.

And either way, you guys should be backing up your stuff on this Forum because no one is working on the backend doing backups.

proboards hosts a homestuck forum I go onto. it has a very useful participated tab where it shows you if any new posts showed up in the threads you've been in. Though id really hate to see this forum be moved to more inferior hosting sites, it would be for the better.

I'd be more than happy to help as a moderator for both the Forums and the main MSPARP site. I'm very patient and currently have quite a bit of free time. If not by moderating, I'd still love to help in any other way that I can. I love the forums and the MSPARP site, so I'd hate to see all of just end.